SC gives CBI 3 more months to wrap up Sohrabuddin probe

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursday gave the CBI three months more to wrap up the probe into the Sohrabuddin fake encounter case brushing aside charges from arrested former Gujarat minister Amit Shah’s counsel that it was being used to fructify “a conspiracy hatched at highest levels of politics of the country” to destabilise the Narendra Modi government.



Attorney general G E Vahanvati debunked the charge as baseless, but Shah’s counsel and noted criminal lawyer Ram Jethmalani claimed to have documentary proof and repeatedly pleaded citing Supreme Court judgments that the SC had no role to monitor a probe after filing of chargesheet. He sought two days’ time to place on record documents to show how a conspiracy was hatched to target the Modi government.
But, when a Bench comprising Justices Aftab Alam and R M Lodha expressed their willingness to give some more time to CBI to complete its probe into the fake encounter killing of Sohrabuddin associate Tulsiram Prajapati and the larger conspiracy behind it, Jethmalani let go a volley of charges — including one relating to propriety behind the January 12 order by an earlier Bench of Justices Tarun Chatterjee and Alam directing the CBI probe.
He said: “On January 12, Justice Chatterjee was himself being investigated by the CBI in PF scam. It was highly improper for him to have ordered a CBI probe when he himself was under CBI scanner”. This drew sharp protests from solicitor general Gopal Subramaniam, who is assisting the court as amicus curiae.
Terming the allegations as unfortunate, Subramaniam said the court should continue monitoring the probe as the CBI was yet to fully meet the SC’s mandate to probe and unearth the larger conspiracy behind the killings of Sohrabuddin, Kauser Bi and Prajapati.
Though the judges made their deep anguish known at the level of allegations, it was senior advocate Dushyant Dave appearing for Rubabuddin, brother of Sohrabuddin who had moved the SC for an independent probe, who interjected questioning everything argued by Jethmalani.
Appearing for CBI, senior advocate K T S Tulsi told the Bench that Prajapati’s killing was “part of the same transaction” and that accused former cop D G Vanzara was transferred just days before Prajapati’s fake encounter to the border range at the behest of Shah, the then MoS for home.
The status report had said that the agency would require six more months to complete the probe and requested the apex court permission for taking over from the Gujarat police the probe into three more cases apparently related to the Sohrabuddin fake encounter case. But, SC granted three months’ time to CBI and refused to pass any orders on the request for transfer of the three cases to the agency from the Gujarat police.